


Unpopularity Contest

by Unsentimentalf



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Alternate Universe - Boarding School, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-12-11 13:59:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11715810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unsentimentalf/pseuds/Unsentimentalf
Summary: Kerr Avon didn’t care whether his classmates hated him or not as long as they left him alone, which they did, right up until the point at which all the school staff mysteriously abandoned them. After that Avon was on his own. Nearly on his own, anyway . A junior hardly counted as a proper ally, not even as resourceful a one as Roj Blake...





	Unpopularity Contest

"Finish the section you're on." The teacher‘s voice was hurried. “Anything left over is homework." The noise level in the classroom had begun to mount even before the door closed behind him. 

Idiots, Kerr Avon thought. The cameras were still on. He turned back to his tablet. Integrations weren't interesting enough to waste his precious spare time on. He could finish the three screens before the lesson period was over. 

Behind him the others grew rowdier as the schoolmaster's absence stretched on. Avon ignored them, even when he heard his name called, but he couldn't ignore the painful thump between his shoulder blades. Someone had thrown a tablet at him. 

He turned slowly to confront the classroom. One of the group of six at the back had thrown it; he could seen their reactions, half horrified and half delighted at their own temerity. He was aware that everyone else in the classroom was watching him too. He had no allies here, only potential tormentors, victims or neutrals. When he'd arrived he'd done what he'd had to do at every new school to ensure his own survival: identify the lead bullies, get each of them on their own and hurt them. For the last month everyone had duly left him well alone, until now. 

Two of the six had cried at his feet and he guessed that they wouldn't be ready to forget it. The other four were nothing but hangers on but as a group they were definitely more than he could handle. The evidence from the classroom cameras might bring him justice afterwards but if no-one was monitoring them they might not save him from a beating now. He stood up, slid his tablet in his pocket and walked out of the room. 

Nobody followed him. Being out in the corridors without permission was a serious offence, treated considerably more seriously than mere fighting. Avon was trying to think up a plausible excuse for his presence there as he passed classroom after classroom in uproar. All the teachers were missing. 

That was more than peculiar. This school, more than any of the others he'd attended, was strict about supervising the juveniles in its charge, to an extent that had made it quite difficult to get his would-be tormentors alone. In one case an patrol had actually caught him in the act of inflicting pre-emptive revenge behind the gymnasium. Fortunately the teacher involved was either unobservant or uncaring and he and the girl involved had merely received a series of detentions for "messing around out of bounds". It had still annoyed Avon who put a great deal of work into keeping his school records clean. 

He'd never known a single class left unattended, let alone all of them. At the next junction curiosity sent him towards the staff room. He could always claim to be reporting on the disruption. 

The staff room was quiet. Avon knocked once, waited, knocked again and then peered very carefully around the door. The room was completely empty. 

Where could the adults be? Avon stepped into the hallowed sanctum itself, noting that it looked considerably more comfortable than anywhere on the premises that he was allowed to go, and crossed to the first floor window. Below he could see most of the staff making for the school’s large shuttle, carrying bags and boxes. Where on Earth were they off to?

Avon wrestled the window open and leaned out. “Hey!” he called, greatly daring, but he was pretty sure that his parents weren’t paying for this sort of abandonment. 

A couple of the teachers looked around but none of them stopped. As the last ones went up the steps Avon tried to shout again but the noise of both the school’s smaller transports taking off simultaneously drowned his call. The shuttle door closed and the engines started. 

He stared in disbelief as the third vehicle took off, circled the island and then disappeared into the cloudless sky. Beyond the empty landing pad the sea sparkled blue. They’d all gone, he was certain of it. He remembered the sight of the island as he’d been flown in just a few weeks ago. It was tiny, it was isolated and he was now sharing it with two hundred other schoolkids and no-one in authority. 

“Fuck.” It was the first time he’d ever said the word out loud but the situation certainly warranted it. The others wouldn’t stay in their classrooms long. The absence of both teachers and shuttles was news that would spread like wildfire. He needed to make the most of his slender advantage; he ran all the way to his dormitory.

 

“Where are you going?”

Avon jerked his head up from his packing, relieved to see it was just one of the juniors. “Sod off,” he suggested forcefully. 

“I saw the teachers leave,” the boy said. “They looked scared. I don’t think they are coming back.” 

“So?” Avon shoved his waterproof coat into the duffle.

“So you left a power vacuum and now you’re in trouble.”

“Power vacuum? What the hell are you talking about?”

The boy sat down on Avon’s bed, watching him collect up his last few belongings. “Do you want me to explain about the power vacuum or do you want me to show you somewhere really good to hide before they come after you?”

Avon gave the boy a considered stare as he closed the bag. “Why would you do that?”

“Because you’re smart and tough enough to help me but foolish enough to need my help. I’ve been here three years. I sneak out all the time and I know every inch of the island. What was your plan; head to the woods?”

It had been Avon’s only idea but he hadn’t been happy about it. “Foolish how?”

“You left the power vacuum,” the boy said. “I think we’d better hurry.”

“Don’t you have anything to bring?” Avon said suspiciously.

“I’ve been hiding stuff out by the cliffs for months. The teachers think I’m terribly careless. I keep getting detention for losing things.” The boy smiled happily. Avon didn’t.

He couldn’t think of any reason why this boy should want to turn him over to his classmates but that didn’t mean there wasn’t one. On the other hand the woods were barren and he had no supplies. Raiding the kitchens would take him past his classroom which was not a good idea. “If you grass me up I’m going to rip your balls off,” he told the boy. 

“I won’t do that,” the boy said “Do hurry, Kerr.”

Avon glared at him. “Don’t be presumptuous, junior.” 

“Avon, then. I’m Roj, by the way. Roj Blake.”

“All right then, Blake. Lead on.”

 

“The thing about school is that it isn’t fair,” Blake said intensely.

“Of course it isn’t.” Avon threw the apple core over the edge of the cliff and watched it disappear into the frothing sea below. They were in a cave a good ten foot across and the same deep, half way up the cliff. God knows how Blake had originally found it; the invisible track down was both almost impossible to see and frankly terrifying. 

“But the teachers claim it is. And it should be. We’re here to learn stuff, and all the injustices just get in the way of that.”

“Do they?” Avon hadn’t thought of it like that. He considered for a moment. “I don’t think so. I’ve been learning things just fine.”

“Of course you have no problems,” Blake said disgustedly. “You’re the top predator, or at least you would be if you had more sense.” 

“I was a junior once,” Avon pointed out. “I survived.” 

“But we shouldn’t have to survive. We shouldn’t have to keep our heads down, kowtow to the older pupils and hope no-one gets irritated when we’re in reach.”

“You keep saying ‘shouldn’t’” Avon said. “Why do you think ‘should’ makes any difference? This is what it is, that’s all. Every school I’ve been to was the same.” 

“But it _shouldn’t_ be!” Blake half laughed. “I’m not convincing you, am I?”

“Not in the least. You just have to learn to cope. As far as I can see life’s never going to get any fairer.” 

“And how’s your coping strategy going?” Blake asked. 

Avon wondered whether he should smack the smaller boy over the head for cheek, but he wasn’t in the mood, and besides, Blake was turning out to be useful right now. “Looks fine to me. Or are you going to go on about your power vacuum again?” 

Blake shrugged. “You made it, not me. You come in half way through the term as a top class senior which would be enough to get you talked about on its own, but then word is you’re picking fights with all the really nasty guys.”

“I don’t pick fights.” Avon said sharply. “Fighting’s for idiots.”

“So what did you do?” Blake asked.

“I scared them off.”

“Oh.” Blake thought about that for a moment. “Either way, that was where you made your mistake. You’d established the new pecking order, everyone was ready to follow you and you did nothing. For a few days everyone wanted to be your friend and you rejected all of them. So they all drifted back to the old leaders who hate you and now you’ve got a bigger target on your back than anyone else at school just when the teachers can’t protect you.”

He’d only wanted to be left alone. Avon considered Blake’s analysis and couldn’t immediately find the flaw. There had to be one. “Why do you think you know anything about me?”

“I watch, of course.” Blake said. “If I’m going to do something about the bullies I need to know who they are and who their friends are.” 

Avon snorted. “You can’t do anything about anyone. What power have you got?”

“I’ve got this cave, “Blake said. “And all the stuff I’ve brought here. And I’ve got the meanest SOB in the school as an ally. That’s not bad as a start.” 

“I don’t care about your stupid campaign against injustice, “ Avon said. “All I care about is keeping out of trouble until the adults come back. Have you told any of your little friends about this place?” 

“I haven’t told anyone, “ Blake said. “When I’d got enough stuff here I was going to bring my whole class to hide here. That would make all the bullies sit up and take notice, teachers and seniors.”

Avon shook his head at the naivety of the younger boy. “ They’d bring heat sensing drones over from the mainland and find this place in no time. Then you’d all be in real trouble. Beatings all round, I imagine.”

The legend of the Head’s beatings was a late night dorm staple, even though as far as Avon could work out no-one had ever admitted to enduring one. Avon wasn’t even sure that the school’s contract with parents allowed then to impose corporal punishment. He guessed not, since he was sure that a couple of the teachers would have taken great delight in inflicting physical pain if they were allowed to. 

On the other hand it seemed that Blake’s plans for making trouble were on a grand scale. Perhaps the school administration would have felt the need to respond with an equally severe punishment. 

“Oh.” Blake looked downcast. “I hadn’t thought of the drones.” He cheered up. “Good job I’ve got you on my side now.”

“I am not on your side,” Avon told him and turned back into the cave to dig out his tablet. “I suppose you don’t have a solar charger hidden away somewhere?” he said without much hope.

“Yes!” Blake bounced across the sandy cave floor to open a large box that Avon couldn’t imagine getting here down that path and pull out the small device. “Here. What are you doing?”

“Trying to break the school’s overrides. Then we can get messages to and from the mainland.”

“Can you really do that?” Blake asked, apparently fascinated.

“Eventually. How long will our food and water last here?”

Blake came to look over his shoulder. “Well...can eventually be before teatime? There’s another apple but it’s gone a bit brown.”

Avon stood up, making the most of his extra height as he glared down at the junior. “You’ve got no food?”

“It was on my list,” Blake said defensively. 

“Then you’re going to have to get some now,” Avon snarled at him.

“All right,” Blake said and started towards the path. 

“Wait!” Avon said sharply. “Where are you going?”

“The kitchens,” Blake said. 

“Idiot! There are two hundred pupils on this island and every one of them is going to get hungry sometime around now. Where do you think they’ll go?” 

“The kitchens,” Blake said again. “Which is where I’ll stand in line with the other juniors and lick whatever backsides I have to. No-one wants to stick _my_ head down the toilet, remember? And even if they did, it’s happened before. You’re the one going to get ripped to shreds out there.”

“If you always talk to your betters like that it’s no wonder you get bullied,” Avon commented.

Blake frowned at him. “I don’t have any betters here, just biggers.”

Avon had spent most of his school life thinking exactly the same thing, so he let the rudeness pass. “If you can get back into my dorm, Gregor’s locker is the one nearest the door. He got a whole parcel of chocolate yesterday. He can’t have eaten a kilo of the stuff since yesterday and he never shares it out. The code’s 8642.”

“Not hard to remember,” Blake commented.

“He’s not particularly smart.” It was rather pleasant to be talking to someone who did seem to be pretty smart, if only a kid. “Be careful. If you’re caught stealing from seniors they won’t just stick your head down a toilet.” 

“I won’t get caught,” Blake said confidently. “See you later.”

Avon sat back and watched the empty sea, glad of the solitude and the time to think at last.

What a mess. The school must be in regular contact with the mainland- how long until someone noticed the island wasn’t responding? That depended on what was going on on the mainland, he supposed, and why the teachers had left. If there had been danger here then surely they would have at least tried to save their charges? There were regular evacuation drills, after all, and while he didn’t think much of some of the teachers there were a couple that he had thought took their responsibilities to the kids seriously, yet he’d seen both of them climb into the shuttle without even glancing back. 

It wasn’t just physical danger he was fretting about. He’d begged his parents to transfer him here because the place had a reputation for pushing their gifted pupils hard and they’d promised to enter him for his exams a full year and a half early. All the other top schools were currently obsessed with “achieving matched progress in social development” and “staying within a child’s natural peer group.” Well, he didn’t like his peer group and developing socially wasn’t high on his priority list, not compared to getting on the college course he wanted. 

If this got out, and he couldn’t quite see how it could not get out with two hundred kids running wild out there, there was no way that his parents would let him stay here, and that meant another move and more disruption to his studies, even assuming he could find a decent school that would provide what he wanted. Damn. No, not damn. Fuck. He turned back to trying to hack his tablet. 

After a couple of hours he was wondering where Blake had got to. After a couple more he was wondering if the boy had bailed on him in favour of food and a proper bed, or if he’d got caught stealing chocolate and was still getting beaten up by every senior in turn. But just as it started to go dark he heard stones roll as Blake came down the slope.

“What happened?” he demanded.

Blake dropped a bright red rucksack on the ground. “And thank you very much Roj to you too,” he said. “The prefects are running the kitchen. You have to peel about a billion potatoes if you want dinner.”

Avon grinned. “That sounds extremely fair,” he said. “Surely you approve?”

“I didn’t seen any of your classmates peeling anything and they all got served first,” Blake grumbled. “Slave labour is what it is. I never want to see another potato. There’s bread and cheese in the bag. Oh, and the chocolate.”

Avon settled down with his supper. “Has anyone noticed I’m missing?”

“Boy, have they!” Blake said cheerfully, “General view was that you were hiding in the woods somewhere, though Keira Katest reckons she saw you jump off the cliff to your doom.”

“She’s a terrible liar,” Avon said. “I suppose there’s no way to make people believe that? It would be convenient.”

Blake beamed. “I’ve done better than that. I’ve told six separate people that you were seen boarding the shuttle with the teachers.” He shrugged at Avon’s open mouthed expression. “Everyone knows you think you’re too good for the rest of us. It’s just the sort of thing you’d do.”

“That,” Avon admitted reluctantly, “was brilliant. Will they buy it?”

“By the time I’d finished eating one of the seniors was telling our table that she’d personally seen that dirty little fucker Kerr Avon scurrying aboard a flyer.” He grinned completely unapologetically. “It was Reisa Brendon. That’s what she said. I thought you’d like to know.”

“Not particularly,” Avon said. “I don’t go in for popularity contests.”

“You certainly don’t,” Blake said. “I didn’t know that it was mathematically possible to be as unpopular as you are right now.” 

“What about you,” Avon asked, briefly curious. “Are you the class joker, the oddball or the swot?”

“I’m the fourth most popular person in my class,” Blake said proudly.

“Fourth? That doesn’t sound very impressive.”

“It’s really tricky to stay fourth,” Blake said seriously. “People are always doing things to change the order.”

“Why stay fourth? Why not go for first, or last?”

“The more popular you are, the more people notice you, and they notice if you’re not there. I’m not there quite a lot but I’d rather if people didn’t see that. It helps that I’ve got two best friends in different classes who can’t stand each other and they both assume I’m with the other one most of the time. 

“But when all this is finally ready,” he waved around at the cave, “I’m going to do something that really matters and to do that I need people to listen to me. So fourth is about right.”

Avon thought that he’d never met someone as odd as Blake before. “Anything you do will just get you in trouble, maybe expelled, and that will be on your records for life and all just to make a stupid point about how unfair school is?”

“It’s not a stupid point, “ Blake insisted. “I can’t see how unfair it all is and not do anything!”

“Why not? I don’t do anything about it every single day. You’re not the first person to notice that school is bloody awful. Keep your head down, do the work, pass the exams and leave, and don’t screw up your future just to make a gesture that no-one cares about.” His voice had risen which was stupid, he told himself. What did he care if Blake was a fool? 

“And if I’d just kept my head down this morning,” Blake shouted back at him, “you’d have been in big fucking trouble by now, Kerr Avon!”

He stomped over to the far end of the cave and sat with his back to Avon, arms around his knees. Avon watched his back quiver in the fading light and thought that he might be crying. Well, it had been a pretty bad day and the kid was probably scared stiff. 

There were two self inflating mattresses and some silvered heat retaining blankets. It was still summer; they’d be fine. Avon set the makeshift beds up at about the distance that the dorm beds were apart and climbed under the blankets of one nearest the cave mouth. “It’s dark,” he pointed out to the faint shape in the darkness that was Blake’s back, “and we don’t want to be flashing torches around for anyone to see. Go to bed. The teachers will probably be back in the morning.”

Blake said nothing but after a moment or two Avon could hear him moving around by the bed. Then there was silence for a while.

“Avon?” 

Avon had been very nearly asleep. “What?” he snapped.

“Have you ever had sex?”

“Shut up and go to sleep!” Avon commanded, 

“No, but have you? Everyone knows half the seniors are doing it all the time.”

“Which means that half of them aren’t,” Avon snarled. 

“OK. I just wondered. Only if you did, would you care whether it was a girl or a boy?” 

“I’m going to come over there and thump you unless you shut up,” Avon warned. 

“It’s a reasonable question,” Blake said.

Avon sat up. “Why is it a reasonable question?” he demanded to the darkness. “What the hell has it got to do with you?” 

“I thought maybe if you liked boys...” Blake trailed off.

“For God’s sake, Blake! You’re thirteen!”

“Fourteen last week,” Blake said,. “I’m the second oldest in my year. So I’m only a year younger than you.” 

Since Avon was turning sixteen next month this was mathematically as well as morally dubious. “I am not going to do it with you.” 

“I don’t want to go all the way,” Blake said. “Not for ages yet. I just thought that maybe next time you were having a wank, we might have one together.”

“If you talk about this any more I’m going to demonstrate just how good I am at hurting people,” Avon said darkly. “Shut up and go to sleep or I promise you’re going to regret it.”

That did the trick. Shortly afterwards he could hear Blake’s steady breathing and he could tell that the boy had fallen asleep.

Avon had spent his whole adolescence in the hormonal chaos of boarding schools and he had perforce ended up being aware of a great deal of sexual activity even if he’d never been directly involved. He’d had a couple of crushes of his own at various times but had never for a moment thought of actually approaching the objects of his frustrated lust. A couple of years ago (he’d have been a bit younger than Blake) he’d cracked the security around his holiday tutor’s pornography subscription and ever since he’d kept a number of favoured images and videos in an extremely secure partition on his own console. Masturbating over those in what little solitude he could arrange was as far as his sexual experience went. 

He knew that other pupils in the school were experiencing rather more. The lower years tended to embrace the unavoidable lack of privacy by taking part in noisy group masturbation sessions but it didn’t mean that you fancied other boys if you did that. You weren’t meant to even take a sideways look at someone else’s prick. 

As the lower school became juniors a few started currying favours by doing things usually for older pupils. Avon had thought at first that was what Blake was proposing, something he wanted absolutely no part of, but thinking about it he couldn’t see why the boy would suddenly turn into a creep after everything Blake had argued all day. More likely Blake had a genuine crush on him, which in turn solved the mystery of why he had turned up in Avon’s dorm and offered to help.

Avon wasn’t going to let anything happen, not with a smart aleck junior. Fourteen last week, for Christ’s sake! He would continue to jerk off in privacy and Blake would just have to pine.  
.

 

“You should have gone back last night,” Avon said to Blake. They were eating the remains of the cheese as breakfast and watching the clouds gathering on the horizon.”They’ll wonder where you were.”

“Lots of people said they were going to sleep on the beaches or swap beds with other dorms. No-one will miss me as long as I show up fairly regularly. I like it out here. I’ve never been able to sleep in the cave before.”

Avon eyed him sideways but said nothing about their conversation the night before. “Find out what news there is and get some more food and water.. If everyone thinks I’ve gone I’d better not risk getting seen. I’ll stay here and work on the overrides.”

“OK,” Blake said cheerfully. “See you!” and he threw the red rucksack over his shoulder and started up the tiny path again. 

The school’s system was down which meant that pupil to pupil communications were out as well as making Avon’s task well nigh impossible. The best hackers might be able to crack a system that wasn’t running and get it started up but it was almost certainly well past Avon’s capacities. On the other hand he couldn’t do much else with his tablet without the communication system so there wasn’t any reason not to try. 

He tried for several hours without success. Blake came back in the early evening, having been out all day. Avon couldn’t help being a little glad to see him.

“News?”

Blake unpacked the bag- crackers and more cheese, a few apples and a large bottle of lemonade. “The teachers aren’t back. The lower house kids are crying a lot. Most of the juniors have split up into gangs with stupid names like “Death Killers” but it’s all talk. The prefects are still running the kitchen but I think they’re getting bored, and the other seniors are just taking what they want anyway. There’s a lot of yelling going on. Oh and Loretz and his gang have declared that they own the woods and no-one else can go in there without permission. So basically everyone’s being just as dumb as I thought they’d be.” He sighed. “I can’t believe I’m saying this but the teachers had better come back soon or there are going to be some serious fights.”

“Anyone talking about me?”

“Not much. They think you’ve gone. But the seniors have made a pact that if you come back with the teachers they’re all going to fuck you over together cos the school can’t expel them all at once. “

“Your language is awful,” Avon said disapprovingly. “Do you have to swear so much?”

“Sorry,” Blake said. “They’re all going to beat you to a bloody pulp together. Is that better?”

Not really, no. Avon had been hoping that when the adults returned everything would go back to the previous stand-off. The prospect of having his entire year group queuing up to have a go at him despite the presence of adult authority was seriously intimidating. “None of this is my fault,” he pointed out.

“You were in on it, or at least that’s what they think. It was fun for a few hours but now it’s not just the lower school kids that are scared and unhappy. They can’t do anything to get back at the grown-ups for fucking off - sorry, for leaving, but you’re fair game.” 

That put a damper on conversation for a while. After a while Avon scrambled a little further down the cliff to take a piss. When he came back Blake was curled up on his mattress with his own tablet, reading something. 

“Comics?” Avon asked.

“It’s a book about jet engines. One of my dads sent it to me a few days ago.”

Avon hadn’t imagined that Blake had interests other than troublemaking and discovering caves. He took a glance over Blake’s shoulder. It looked relatively technical, at least for a junior. 

Blake grinned up at him, obviously pleased at his interest. “I’m going to train as an engineer?”

“Really?” Avon was unimpressed. “You could do better.”

“I don’t want to do better. I want to be an engineer.”

“Why? The work’s not particularly interesting”.

“But engineers are needed everywhere . That means I can go anywhere. I might even get work on a spaceship!!”

“Ugh,” Avon said. “Spaceships are dangerous, uncomfortable and unprofitable. I’ve no intention of ever setting foot off Earth unless it’s on luxury vacation.”

“That’s probably for the best, “ Blake commented. “No-one would want to be stuck on a spaceship with you for long. But I want to see the Galaxy and I won’t do that by studying extra-temporal maths or extinct languages.”

“You probably won’t get off Earth anyway,” Avon said cynically. “Hardly anyone does.”

“I can try.” Blake said, a little crossly. “I’m very persistent.”

“Really? I hadn’t noticed.” Avon turned away and settled back on his own mattress to pull up the unfinished integration worksheet.

 

“Avon?” came the voice again that night in the dark. 

Avon pulled his blanket closer around his shoulders. “If you’re starting that again you’re going to regret it.”

“I’m not! Though I really really wish you would. I was just wondering. Don’t you get lonely?”

“No.” he said.

“It’s just that out of class you’re always on your own. I know most of your class are oiks but Silverman is decent, and Pertis is clever, and Jerres is clever and nice _and_ pretty. You could be friends with them.”

Avon’s academic rivalry with Pertis was fairly fiercely contested in a couple of subjects though overall he considered himself well ahead. He had mentally labelled the other two as “harmless” early on and he’d not given them a second thought since. 

“I don’t have time for friends,” he said. “I’ve got work.”

“Work’s not that much fun, surely?”

It wasn’t a matter of fun. “It’s an investment,” he told the cave ceiling. “I work now, I have a better life later.”

“So how long do you need to work for before you get to start enjoying yourself?” Blake asked. 

Avon had never considered it quite that way. Blake laughed into the silence. 

“Well I’m planning to start enjoying myself now and carrying on for about the next ten minutes. I’ll try not to keep you awake.” 

“You are a filthy little animal,” Avon told him. “And if I hear anything but snores from over there I’m going to smother you with your own blanket.” 

He did hear something, of course, but Blake did genuinely seem to be trying to be quiet about it so Avon followed the standard dorm code in these circumstances by rolling over and trying very hard to think about something else.

 

This time the morning clouds on the far horizon seemed darker. Blake seemed inclined to lounge around the cave after breakfast indefinitely until Avon ran out of patience with being continually interrupted and sharply sent the boy off to gather up the day’s food and news from the school.

As he struggled fairly futilely with the comms system he kept an eye on the sky and an ear out for planes but nothing broke the silence until midday when the storm that had been building all morning finally broke. 

Avon had never been out of doors during a big storm before. He knew that in the cave he should probably be safe enough but when the storm passed straight in front of it, bolts of lightning hitting the sea simultaneously with their ear cracking thunder he flattened himself against the far wall, physically shaking. 

Finally the storm moved away and the heavy rain finally eased up. Avon felt exhausted from terror. He lay on his mattress, eyes shut, finally wondering about how everyone else had fared. It occurred to him that if Blake had been crossing the cliff tops on his way back to the cave he could have been in actual danger. It also occurred to him that the only reason Blake would have been out there at all was because Avon had chased him out of the cave to go and do something useful for Avon. 

These thoughts became more and more insistent as more time passed without Blake returning. Eventually Avon left the cave and made his way up the awkward cliff path, telling himself that he wasn’t looking for Blake, he was just going as far as he needed to fill his water bottle in case the boy didn’t get back.

He walked along the cliff edge for about five minutes, seeing neither Blake nor any sign of lightning strikes. Blake was probably still at the school, fooling around with his many little friends, Avon thought sourly. He was about to turn around when something caught his eye. Where a gully ran down the cliff edge there was a bright red rucksack on the ground.

Avon broke into a run. It was definitely Blake’s. A carton of orange juice had fallen out of it. 

Avon looked around but there was no-one else in sight. “Blake!” he called out, not too loud, then again, more desperate. “Blake!”

“Here!” came a shout. Avon dropped to his knees and carefully crawled to look over the edge. Blake was about ten feet down on a narrow ledge, his leg twisted awkwardly out in front of him. He was soaked through and looked as if he’d been crying.

“What happened?” Avon demanded.

“I was trying to get below ground level because of the lightning, and it was wet and I slipped. I think my leg’s broken or sprained or something. I can’t move it, anyway.”

“I’ll get help,” Avon said.

“There’s rope in the cave. You can pull me up.”

“No I can’t.” There was nothing to hitch a rope around. He would need to haul Blake’s whole weight straight up, hand over hand for ten feet and he was absolutely sure that he couldn’t do it.

“You’ll think of something,” Blake said, rather desperately.

“I have thought of something. Three more people to help me pull you up and get you back to the infirmary.”

“You can’t go back to school,” Blake’s voice had gone a little higher.

“Of course I can. There might be a bit of a fuss, that’s all.”

“Please!” Blake said. “Listen to me, Avon! No-one there is going to listen to a word you say. They’ll do something awful to you and after that there won’t be anyone who even knows I’m here and I shall stay on this fucking ledge until I pass out and fall into the sea and die, and I really don’t want to die before I’ve done anything so I’m begging you please don’t go back to the school!”

Avon frowned down at him. He really hadn’t liked the desperate conviction in Blake’s voice. No-one would actually do anything terrible to him, would they? He’d never done anything to them. Not anything much, anyway. And they were all just children.

That last felt utterly hollow. He knew just how cruel others his age could be, and he knew that it was only the adults and all the things they needed that the adults had control over that had ever kept them in check. He was fairly sure that a classroom that erupted into chaos when a teacher stepped out despite the obvious presence of cameras wasn’t going to be thinking about the long term consequences of their actions. So yes, there was an outside chance that they might do something really bad instead of listening to him and then Blake might actually die.

“I’m going to go back and get the rope,” he called down, since any sort of rescue was going to need it and it would give him some time to think. 

“Promise you won’t go to the school!” Blake begged. 

“I’m going to the cave then coming right back here,” Avon assured him. “I’ve no particular desire to get my head kicked in on your behalf.”

He jogged back to the path down, the rucksack over his shoulders. The rope was heavy and looked to have come straight out of the gym- God knows how Blake had managed to steal it without being seen. Avon dumped the supplies that Blake had gathered onto the floor and filled the rucksack with the rather bulky coils instead.

Inspiration came to him as he ascended the cliff path. He didn’t need to walk into school and tell everyone that Blake was trapped; he just needed to arrange for someone to come across the boy. None of the seniors had a reason not to help a stranded junior, in fact he was willing to bet that they’d revel in the sense of importance it would give them. As long as they didn’t link Blake to him, the lad would be absolutely fine. 

He got back to Blake, who was looking even whiter and very relieved to see him. “The rope’s in your rucksack, “ Avon told him. “You can tell them that you’d come to climb down the cliffs after birds’ eggs or something.”

“Why would I want a bird’s egg?” Blake asked, quite reasonably.

“How should I know? I just read somewhere that people used to collect them. Say you were picking flowers if you prefer. I don’t care. Anyway, when they find you you can tell them about the rope. I’ll leave the bag up here where it’s obvious. Just don’t mention the cave whatever you do because I’ll be in it.” 

“How are they going to find me?” Blake said, rather shakily.

“I’ll lead them here and then I’ll hide. Shout when you hear voices and they’d find you easily- your rucksack will be right out in the open above here.” 

“What if they don’t find me?”

“Then I’ll lead them back again until they do.”

“What if they catch you?”

“No-one’s going to catch me, “ Avon said. “Stop whining. You’ll be tucked up in the infirmary being an object of general admiration to all the other juniors in no time.”

“And you’ll be in the cave?”

“With all the food and drink you’ve brought. It will be blessedly peaceful.”

 

They were closer behind than they should be. Avon pounded across the short grass, wishing he’d put in a bit more effort in PE lessons. One of his pursuers started whooping and others took it up, the air ringing with the blood curling sound. What would they do if they caught him?

Looking round wouldn’t help and would just slow him down. They weren’t that close really, he told himself, and he was nearly at the point where Blake had fallen. Would they hear Blake over the racket they were making? There was the rucksack, bright against the grass. A couple of minutes further and he could see the tufts of long grass that marked the cliff path.

He had a plan, thanks to Keira Katest. It was an awful plan and he hated every bit of it but it was all he had. The first part of the cliff path went down six feet then ended in a sheer drop to the churning waves. You needed to crawl sideways at that point past some deep green bushes. Avon had hated going past that drop, flattening himself as much as he could and grabbing for the plant roots. 

This time he didn’t fall onto his hands and knees as he reached the top of the path. Instead he stood right at the edge and turned to face his pursuers.

They were about fifty feet away. He screamed “Never!” at them, spread his arms wide, turned back towards the sea and fell forward over the edge of the cliff. 

He landed on his hands and knees on the path below the edge and rolled sideways desperately before his momentum could take him forward. A branch hit his face and he scrabbled for hand holds, dragging himself under the vegetation. Then he lay perfectly still and prayed to every god he didn’t believe in.

He could hear the shock in the raised voices, the start of recriminations and blame. They came close enough to the edge to stare into the white waters for his body but no-one saw that there might be a way down and no-one gave a thought to the bushes, not when the sea churned so spectacularly straight in front of them. Again he wondered how on earth Blake had ever managed to find the route. 

They were still milling around up there, apparently unsure what they should do, when someone came up shouting that a kid was trapped. Avon could hear the immediate relief in the voices, an excuse to turn away from what had happened here. Within a minute there was silence above him. 

He stayed under the bushes until it started to get too dark to see properly, then he crawled flat to the ground every inch of the way back to the cave. There he dug out the chocolate and ate a great deal of it which reduced his shaking a little, and eventually he went to sleep.

 

The police flyers came in force two days later. Avon counted eight skimming low across the sea. Not long after that two medical flyers came in, and about three hours later a whole cloud of personal flyers. When Avon spotted his mother’s dark green and black vehicle among the crowd he decided that it was time to resurrect himself. He didn’t mind his schoolmates or the police thinking he was dead but his mother was a different matter. 

He tidied himself up as much as he could, packed up anything he cared about keeping and set off very cautiously across the island. It was deserted until he got through the wood, at which point he met a rather startled policewoman.

“Hello,” he said. “I’m Kerr Avon.”

She said something that adults generally didn’t in front of children and grabbed for her communicator. “The Avon boy’s turned up. Yes, he looks fine. You’d better tell the parents. I’m bringing him in now.” 

She turned back to Avon.“You gave everyone a scare, young man,” she said, her voice heavy with disapproval.

Avon couldn’t think of a good response to that.

The woman led him into the main hall, where the entire school population was sitting on chairs facing the stage, youngest at the front. It could have been any ordinary school assembly except for the silence. 

That changed as Avon followed his guide across the front of the stage and down the middle aisle. There was a wave of noise as they all saw him. Avon let his eyes flicker across the ranks, his face expressionless. That was Blake’s class but the boy wasn’t there. 

He took a faster pace to catch up to the police officer. “I thought we were going to my parents?” 

“The Chief Investigator needs to talk to the whole school first,” she said. “After that you can all go home. All the parents are waiting next door.” 

“There was a buy who hurt his leg,” he said. “Roj Blake, Is he all right?”

“The doctors are with him now. He’ll be taken out in the ambulance when he’s stable, This is your class, isn’t it? Sit down. ”

Avon looked at his class mates. They looked back at him. He sighed and walked over to sit down on the sole empty seat, beside Jerres. 

He wasn’t paying as much attention as he could have been to the Chief Investigator, mainly because his classmates kept leaning over from all directions to hiss remarkably unfriendly stuff in his ear. But apparently his terribly respectable schoolteachers had been fleeing from the police investigation closing in on their nest of insurgents. It seemed fairly unlikely to Avon given everything he’d heard of their entirely conventional political teachings but it really wasn’t his main concern at the moment. 

The school was being closed down for good; now that was more relevant, and the best possible news. Annoying as it was to have to find another school it did mean that as soon as he was out of this hall he need have nothing more to do with any of his schoolmates, ever. 

He suddenly realised that that meant that Blake might not even find out that he was alive. Blake might well blame himself for Avon’s assumed demise. That he had to do something about. He waited impatiently for the classes to be dismissed, shoved his way without ceremony past everyone wanting to tell him exactly what they thought of him and broke into a run up to the medical flyer

The man restlessly pacing around outside looked enough like Blake for Avon to be fairly sure of his identity, but he asked anyway.

“I’m Roj’s father, yes,” the man said, frowning a little. “You’re not in his class, are you?”

“No,” Avon said. “I’m a senior. My name’s Kerr Avon.”

“Is it, indeed?” The man’s frown deepened. 

“Yes, “Avon said, a bit impatiently. “Look, Blake- Roj- hasn’t got any way to get in touch with me. Can I leave my contact code with you?”

“Why should he need to contact you?”

Avon wasn’t going to go into the whole thing now. “We’re sort of friends.” 

“I’m sure Roj has all the contacts for his friends already,” The man was looking really unfriendly now.

“We’re recent friends. If he doesn’t want to get back to me that’s fine but I just want to leave my contact.” Avon couldn’t work out what the man’s problem was. ”Please.”

Reluctantly Roj’s father extended his tablet and Avon punched the code in. “Thank you.”

He could hear his name being called- that was his father and he sounded more than a little emphatic. Avon turned around and went to meet him, wondering just how he was going to talk his way out of this amount of trouble, but when he reached them it turned out that all his parents wanted to do was to hug him for a very long time. 

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

Avon was deep in an article about recent developments in AI when he got the signal. He assumed it was one of his parents or a tutor. “Connect” he called. 

He blinked in surprise at the face on the screen. “Blake?” The boy had managed to start growing a beard. It looked ridiculous. “What do you want?” he asked coldly.

“To say I’m sorry,” Blake said. His voice had broken; it was startlingly deep now. “But it really wasn’t my fault. My fathers got the wrong end of the stick and decided you were predatory and far too old for me. They told me about you being OK but your contact code got time locked; I only just got it.”

“That was two years ago,”Avon pointed out.

“I know. I had a whole lot of stuff automatically unlocked on my sixteenth birthday. That’s today, by the way.”

Avon sighed. “I don’t care if you have a happy birthday or not so don’t expect me to wish you one.”

“I’m having one, thank you. It’s good to see you. You look older.”

“You look scruffier,” Avon retorted. “Has no-one showed you how to shave?”

“I’m trying the beard out. Haven’t made up my mind yet. Do you like it?”

“I think you should wait until you can grow a beard before you try to grow one.” 

“You’re probably right,” Blake said. “Are you at college yet?”

“Yes.”

“Whereabouts?”

“The Computing Academy,” Avon said, rather smugly.

“Oh, I hoped so! That’s really close to me. When can we meet?” 

“Why are we meeting?” Avon asked.

“Because I have to see you, of course! How about Peace Day? They must give you that off, surely?”

Avon ‘s shrug was meant to convey that they did, but he still wasn’t sure why he should waste his day off with Blake. 

“Wonderful,” Blake said, “My parents are going away for vacation then so you can come here.” He transmitted the address. “Come for lunch. Got to go now; my party’s starting. See you then,” and he signed off. 

Well, Avon thought, apart from the voice he really hasn’t changed much.

 

Avon had almost forgotten Blake’s invite in the month that followed but the day before Peace Day he’d received a short message that said just “Bread, cheese and chocolate OK?” 

He’d quelled a smile. College interactions were a great deal less potentially violent than school ones and he was on speaking terms with all his classmates but he’d made no active effort to make friends and no-one was expecting him to join them for the one day holiday. It would be another day working at home or bread, cheese and chocolate with Blake. He was mildly curious as to what the boy had been up to in his absence, and he was fond of chocolate so he’d sent an even briefer confirmation and actually bothered to turned up. 

Blake had grown considerably; he was slightly taller than Avon now and he had filled out into a fairly heavy build. His hair, cropped close at school, was now a mass of curls. Avon though that he looked older than sixteen and that he no doubt exploited the fact. Now the attempt at a beard was gone he looked quite irritatingly good looking. How typical of Blake, Avon thought, to have that advantage too.

“It’s really good to see you. Come through.” Blake led the way to the kitchen, where there was indeed an assortment of breads and cheeses.

“No-one’s taught you to cook then,” Avon said. 

“I thought this was easiest. We can eat it in bed without making too muck of a mess.”Blake said cheerfully. 

Avon took a second to register what he’d said. “Oh no! Not a chance!”

Blake grinned at him. “Come on. I'm sixteen now. What possible objection could you have?”

“You're still two years younger than me.”

“One year and ten months,” Blake protested. “And I'll always be one year and ten months younger than you. You were right that it mattered when I was fourteen but it doesn't now. It's perfectly legal.” 

“Legal is hardly the only point,” Avon said. “I'm guessing you haven't been worrying about legal for the last two years anyway.” 

“I did, actually.” Blake protested. “I mean I messed around a bit obviously, but I never went all the way. I was waiting till I was sixteen and then I was waiting for you.” 

“Christ,” Avon said heavily. This had not been what he’d expected from the reunion. “Well I haven’t been spending _my_ time messing around and I don't intend to start today.” 

“I really don't mind if you're a late developer,” Blake said seriously. “I just want you to kiss me.” 

“You just want that?” Avon was extremely cynical about anything that hinted of restraint when it came to Blake.

“Well, honestly, no. I'm not fourteen any more. What I want is for you to fuck me up the ass but kissing is somewhere to start.”

Avon heard him sigh. “Look, Avon. If you don't fancy me at all just say so and we'll eat lunch in the kitchen. But if it's just this stupid age thing I'm going to keep arguing.”

Avon had no compunctions in principle about lying to Blake but not when he could be so easily caught out. Blake had always been highly observant and the conversation, particularly the extremely graphic turn it had taken, had Avon awkwardly hard. He felt that he wasn’t going to get away with pretending a lack of interest, not when it was taking all his self restraint to stay on his own side of the table. What right did Blake have to be so damned attractive when he was only sixteen? He didn’t want the boy to throw himself at him. It wasn't fair. He clenched his fists, digging his nails into his palms and went for a diversion.

“What happened to all your campaigns for justice? Did your hormones take over those too?”

Blake considered him more seriously. “There are some things I do that I don’t think I should tell you about.”

Avon blinked at him. “God! Don’t tell me you’re a bloody subversive!” Breaking school rules was one thing but enemies of the state were subject to readjustment or exile, even sixteen year old ones. 

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to _tell_ you that I’m a bloody subversive.” Blake was grinning again. “But you probably shouldn’t ask too many questions. Shall we get back to seduction?” 

Avon saw an out and went for it. “I can’t get involved with someone like you. I might need a full security clearance if I want to work in the top levels of the Fed and they always look at past sexual partners.” Even saying ‘sexual partners’ to Blake made him feel hot and uncomfortable. 

Blake glared at him. “You haven’t changed at all, have you? Still running around trying to avert every possible danger to yourself before it happens? Are you going to spend the rest of your life only bedding men off a Federation approved list? Or are you just going to stay single and miserable for the sake of your bloody security clearance?”

His voice had become louder. “Can’t you take a bloody risk occasionally, Kerr?”

“I imagine you take them all the time?” Avon retorted.

“Yes, I do. And one day it will all go wrong and my life will no doubt come crashing down around my ears but you know what? I’ll have at least have lived some of it by then, and I’ll have made a fucking difference to something other than my own bank account!”

Avon sighed. “Can’t you offer your rather tarnished virginity to someone else?” 

“It was always going to be you. That’s why I waited. I knew you wouldn’t touch me until I was sixteen. I was going to find you, but then I got your message. I thought it was fate.” He snapped out the words. Avon thought he could see the start of tears of frustration in his eyes.

“Why me?”

“I don’t know! All I know is that I trusted you right from the start and without any reasons. I showed you my special cave and you took it over. I told you my hopes and dreams and you sneered at them with the dizzy superiority of almost 16. I thought you were a hero, God knows why, because all you were doing was hiding from the kids you’d hurt.”

He scowled at Avon, “Everyone knew you weren’t a hero. Some seniors liked to push the little kids around and some others would step in to help them. Everyone knew Kerr Avon would just walk past, every time. You were a pretty nasty piece of work at fifteen, Avon, when I think back to it, but I thought the sun shone out of your arse. About the only thing you didn’t do was take advantage of a fourteen year old who was crazy about you, and I guess that was only because getting caught was too much of a fucking risk!”

Oddly, Avon felt a huge wave of relief at the thought that Blake might finally be seeing him for what he was. “Well now,” he drawled, picking up a plate and making for the bread. “It seems you’re not a complete fool after all. I hope you don’t expect me to dispute your assessment.” 

“Not really,” Blake said. “But I’d like to be sure about the last bit.”

Avon shrugged. “I don’t recall giving it any thought. At fourteen you weren’t even the slightest temptation.”

Blake tipped his head to look at Avon. “At fourteen I wasn’t? So how much of a temptation am I now?”

“Some,” Avon admitted, since it now seemed safe to do so. “But you’ve just told me how little you think of me so it’s not important.”

“I don’t think much of your morals,” Blake agreed, “And I’m not very impressed by your cowardice. But I want to go to bed with you more than anything else I’ve every wanted in my whole life.”

“Your whole life?”Avon asked. “All sixteen years of it?”

“One day I’m going to be forty and you’re going to be forty two and then I shall laugh at you,” Blake said. “Yes, all sixteen years of it. I know what I want and I’m pretty sure I know you better than anyone else does, and I’ve waited until everybody in the world except you thinks I’m definitely old enough to have sex with whoever I like and I really don’t need any protecting at all. Please, Avon, just put down that plate and kiss me. I promise you’ll like it.” 

Avon had finally run out of both arguments and the inclination to think of more so he tried it. He hadn’t kissed anyone before and he was a bit embarrassed about his clumsiness but when they broke off for breath Blake was grinning.

“I just knew it’d be better kissing you than anyone else. You’re always really good at stuff.” A hand reached down to stroke Avon’s aching erection through his trousers and he took a deep breath to stop himself groaning aloud. 

”Let’s go to bed, “ Blake said. “We can have lunch later. I’ve got everything you might want. Well, almost everything. I didn’t buy any of the really weird stuff because it’s really expensive and I didn’t know what you’d like and I don’t think you can return it even if it’s not used. But lubricant and things, I’ve got all that.”

“Blake!” Avon said. “Calm down! Just because I kissed you doesn’t mean that I just want to get rid of the last tattered remnants of your virginity as fast as possible. I don’t care how long you’ve waited. We’re going to do this at my pace or not at all.”

“So what is your pace?” Blake asked, rather downcast. “Do I have to keep my hands off you altogether? Because I probably can but I really don’t want to.”

“It’s not that slow,” Avon assured him. “You can put your hands anywhere you like. But if I’m going to screw you it’s going to be when I want to, not just to tick your ‘new sexual experience’ box.”

Blake grinned at him. “Spoilsport. OK. In that case I can show you some of the boxes I’ve already got ticked. I’m told I do a really good slow hand job.” 

“What a sweet innocent fifteen year old you must have been, “ Avon said sarcastically but his thoughts were almost entirely occupied by quite desperate anticipation. “All right, bed.”

 

“Wake up!” Blake was shaking him urgently. “Avon! Wake up. My dads are back!”

“Are they?” That could be awkward. Avon slipped out of bed and began to dress. 

“You’re going to have to hide under the bed until they are asleep,” Blake whispered.

“No!”Avon whispered back. “I don’t hide under beds. Why don’t you just introduce me?”

“Avon!” Blake said desperately. “Please!”

“I though everyone in the world said you were old enough to have sex with who you like.” Avon pointed out.

“Yes, but they’re my parents! They still think I’m about eight!”

“Then you need to re-educate them.” Avon fastened his trousers and swung his jacket around his shoulders.”

“Roj?” came a deep voice. “Are you still up? You haven’t cleared the kitchen.”

“Sorry Dad, “ Blake called back. “I was going to do it but I fell asleep. I’ll do it now.” He made a desperate gesture to underneath the bed and slid out through the door.

“Have you had friends round?” The voice was more curious than concerned. Avon decided that that was his cue and he walked into the hall.

“Hi,” he said to the two men standing at the kitchen door. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Kerr Avon.”

“Yes, I remember you,” the taller man said. He didn’t sound delighted about it. “I didn’t know you and Roj were still friends.”

“We got in touch again recently, “ Avon said. 

“And what were you doing in Roj’s bedroom?” the other man asked. 

Avon took a silent breath and reminded himself that if he was the father of someone like Blake he’d probably be too busy fretting about what the boy was doing to be polite either. “We were in bed together,” he said calmly.

There as a crash from the kitchen. Neither of Blake’s parents took their eyes off Avon.

“I see,” the taller man said finally. “You do know that Roj has only just turned sixteen?”

“Yes, that subject just kept coming up somehow,” Avon said. “I’m seventeen, in case you were interested.” He didn’t mention his upcoming birthday. For once he was quite happy to imply that there was just a year between them. 

“So you’re still at school?”

“College,” he said, and launched into his little spiel about taking his exams early and the Academy. Blake had, to his credit, found enough nerve to come out during that and to stand next to Avon in a show of solidarity. When he finished there was a brief silence.

“Kerr’s giving me some help with my programming course,” Blake said, cheerfully and with complete mendacity. “You know I got really stuck around the NP stuff? He’s coming round on Thursday to go through it with me.”

Was he, indeed? The men were frowning a little less.

“Well, we expect you to behave with decency, “ the smaller man finally said to Avon. “Roj is still very young.”

Blake and his parents together, Avon thought, was undoubtedly more than he’d bargained for. Now what would a protective and thoroughly unrealistic father want to hear from his sixteen year old’s new boyfriend, apart from a vow of celibacy that Avon certainly wasn’t going to offer?

“The most important thing to both of us is that we stay friends,” he said, thinking for no particular reason about the feel of Blake’s tongue on his nipples. 

That seemed to do it. The men unprickled a little more and introduced themselves as Mathiel and Lestor. Avon helped Blake finish up in the kitchen and said goodbye. Blake followed him out to the doorstep. 

“You will come Thursday, won’t you? They’ll be out for a couple of hours.”

“In that case,” Avon said, “I will probably come at least twice, if this afternoon is anything to go by. But I will not be doing your homework for you.”

“You could do a bit,” Blake suggested. “Just to make it look convincing.” He wrapped his arms around Avon and gave him a long kiss goodbye, his thigh jammed into Avon’s crotch.

“I’m not going to be able to walk home comfortably at this rate,” Avon complained. 

“Good, “ Blake said. “I want you to be thinking about me all the time between now and Thursday.” 

“Well, you’ll just have to be disappointed,” Avon said. “I’ve got plenty of other things to occupy my attention before then. Two assignments and a long tutorial, for a start. And you have school.”

“And other things,” Blake agreed. “Good night, then.”

 

Other things. Blake couldn’t really be involved with subversives, Avon thought as he started back, not so young. It was doubtless just plans for another deeply unwise school prank. Avon would get the details out of him then argue him out of it. Blake must see that he had to be a little more responsible now.

Avon spent the next part of the walk thinking with a great deal of pleasure about certain irresponsible things they’d done and more that they’d discussed, and with rather less pleasure about the talk with Blake’s fathers. Then it suddenly occurred to him that his fellow students might find out about Blake and he stopped dead in the street.

He was the youngest student by some way in the Academy and he’d spent a lot of time making sure that he was known nevertheless to be serious and adult in all respects. If the other students found out he was dating a barely sixteen year old- well, if they were being charitable they’d think him immature and if they weren’t they would think exactly what Blake’s parents had thought. That notion was painful enough that by the time he got home he was nearly ready to ring Blake up and call the whole thing off.

He didn’t want to call it off. He wanted Blake in a selfish and physical and entertaining way that was nothing like the things he’d wanted before out of need or ambition. He wanted to have fun with Blake, not just orgasms. He wanted to see the boy’s delighted grin and debunk his ridiculous notions and eat chocolate with him in bed.

It definitely wasn’t what people might think. Blake’s youth was nothing but a bloody nuisance as far as Avon was concerned. And Blake knew exactly what Avon was like, Blake argued back, he always had. Blake was not remotely under his thumb or starry eyed about him and God knows Avon certainly hadn’t been the one doing the seducing. 

Still, they’d think it. He closed his bedroom door behind him and flopped onto the mattress. It would get better, though, as they got older and twenty two months got less significant. He’d just have to stick it out for a while. Popularity contests weren’t remotely important after all. He transferred a snap he’d taken of Blake that afternoon, all bare long limbs and wide grin, onto the screen on his bedroom wall, to watch over him while he slept. He had a tutorial in the morning and it was four days and very definitely counting until Thursday.

 

THE END


End file.
